GIM Founding Member & Mod.

For decades, many health authorities have played down or even ignored the muscle damage caused by statins. We are repeatedly told that the risk of muscle damage is low.

However, a new study conducted by the Cleveland Clinic that will be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, has again confirmed that large numbers of people do indeed suffer muscle damage due to statins.

This study is unusual because it only included people who had previously reported that they are intolerant to statins - these people were given a statin or a placebo.

The people who took the statin had a 61% increased risk of muscle damage compared with those who took the placebo.Which shows that people do not just imagine the muscle pain, as has previously been suggested by statin supporters.

In response to the study Dr Steven Nissen, chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic, said:

"The study has important implications for both guidelines and regulatory policy, because it provides strong evidence that muscle-related statin intolerance is a real and reproducible phenomenon.”​

72 million people are eligible for statins in the United States, 12-17 million people in the UK, and millions more in other countries. We already know that most of these people will not obtain any benefit from the statin - they are being exposed to significant adverse effects for no prospect of a health benefit.

This latest study should prompt our health authorities to rethink the billions of dollars that are being spent on cholesterol-lowering. However, unfortunately, this study is already being used to suggest that patients should simply switch to another, more expensive, medication.

The study was funded by Amgen Inc., the maker of a PCSK9 Inhibitor - an injection that lowers cholesterol. These PCSK9 Inhibitors have been approved based on the dramatic reductions in cholesterol associated with them - despite that fact that low cholesterol is strongly associated with increased deaths from all causes.

As a reminder of this, please see the video excerpt below:

When it suits them, pharmaceutical companies and those experts paid to support pharmaceutical companies, scoff at the suggestion of statin adverse effects. But when they want to get more people to take another product instead, then they will admit to statin damage.